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Author: Anne Cassidy

Sugar Sand

Sugar Sand

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Dotted at discrete intervals around Siesta Key Beach and its village are signs proclaiming it the “Number One” (#1) Beach in America.”

The research behind this claim may be a bit suspect (it involves someone named Dr. Beach from Florida International University, so perhaps a bit of state favoritism at work). But still, the list includes beaches from Hawaii to Cape Cod, so there is at least an attempt at inclusion. And if consistency matters at all, Siesta Key Beach has been in the top 10 several times in the past.

But I have something better than Dr. Beach. I have personal experience. And I can verify that this is a great beach, broad and balmy, palm-tree-fringed and full of the softest, whitest sand my toes have ever dug into. The natives call it “sugar sand.” And who am I to argue. No wonder this place is so sweet.

Ascending Descenders

Ascending Descenders

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The late musicologist Karl Haas, who I still remember fondly from his radio show “Adventures in Good Music,” once had a program about “ascending descenders” or something of the sort. He may not have used that term, but his point was to celebrate the impact wrought from notes that descend in pitch but elevate in intensity.

I see the same process at work in the foliage of south Florida. Yes, palm fronds arch up and over in graceful arcs. Though their new growth shoots ever heavenward, they have an earthbound quality, too. Same with the long stringy stems (botanists would know what to call these things) that are perhaps the beginnings of a new branch.

In thinking about the foliage and the music I see a common theme: a celebration of life as it is, the ups, the downs, the beginnings and the ends. Recognizing the nobility in all of it.

Beach Walkers

Beach Walkers

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Beach walkers are purposeful creatures, and when you hit the strand early, as I did today, you see them in droves: arms pumping, shoulders squared, feet clad in tennis shoes or serious sandals. I fit right in.

For the beach walker, the ocean is a backdrop, the sand a soft cushion for our plantar-fasciitis-prone heels. No shell will tempt us from our mission, which is to make it from the old jetty to the first (blue) lifeguard chair before being overcome by tropical heat and humidity.

But even the most driven of beach walkers can’t ignore gulf waters lapping, shore birds peeping, the glorious mixture that is life where land meets sea.

Vacation Time

Vacation Time

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Every year when I’m at the beach I finally fall into vacation time. Never completely. There is always a part of me that is about efficiency and completion. And never right away. It may take days.

I knew it happened this time when I completely forgot about a meeting I said I might attend. It wasn’t a conscious slip of the schedule. It was a complete and utter forgetting. And when the reminder text came, it was as if my colleagues were hailing from a distant world.

This world is waiting for me — I’l return to it all too soon — but right now it is deliciously foreign, the sort of place I used to know but have almost forgotten because of the strangeness of its exotic customs.

Palm Songs

Palm Songs

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A breeze stirs the palm fronds, setting one against another. They make a gentle tapping sound not unlike rain on water. This is not the sighing of pine boughs. This is a southern sound, a rustle of taffeta.

It can put you to sleep — even when you haven’t been awake long. It relaxes and cajoles and leads one outside.

At least that’s where it’s led me. Hard to think of words and ideas when the palm trees are singing.

Palm trees straight (above) and reflected in pool water (top). 

The Light, Again

The Light, Again

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I stopped walking this morning long enough to take this shot.

“I almost did the same thing,” said a neighbor, running past me in the opposite direction. The light would have slanted in a bit lower through the tress when he passed this tunnel of green.

Not that I’m complaining about the angle I got to see. Seeing light pour through the trees first thing in the morning reminds me that there is more on heaven and earth than we can ever comprehend. We’re lucky if we have eyes to see and a lens to capture. But the light is there for us even if we don’t.

Book Notes

Book Notes

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Several years ago I began the practice of typing up notes on the books I read. An exercise in futility? An earnest attempt to bolster failing memory? Yes and yes … but more.

I like to think they are a written record of what every good book becomes — a conversation between author and reader. After all, these passages are personal, and they are a snapshot in time. Because what may strike me as important about a book I read in 2014 may not make a similar impression today.

But sometimes they hold steady. This morning I looked at notes for a book I read months ago, one that opened my mind and broadened my attitudes. The notes reminded me of why I liked the book in the first place, how rich it is in ideas. So much so that I printed off the notes and tucked them inside the book. I’m reading it again.

Flying Free

Flying Free

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Maybe it’s just the angle of the light this morning, or the way my chair is facing on the deck, but whatever it is, I’m seeing more clearly the limbs and branches that need pruning, the deadwood.

It’s no surprise the oaks need a trim. They’re old and tired, some of them just hanging on. They would be much happier if they were lighter, leaner — shorn. Wouldn’t we all? And isn’t so much of life about finding the balance between heavy and light, rooted and free.

As I write these words a male cardinal lands on the browning stem of a day lily plant, which seems too slender to support the weight of a goldfinch, let alone this summer-plumped bird. But the stem holds, dips gently, then rises again. The cardinal pauses, fluffs his feathers, then flies away. Oh to have that kind of trust, that kind of lightness.

The Orchid

The Orchid

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One advantage of sitting near a bank of office windows is enjoying the plants the light makes possible. Look at this beauty, which has been blooming almost a month, it seems. I watched each papery flower emerge along the graceful stem.

The orchid’s owner received the plant several years ago when her mother died. Each bloom is a sweet reminder of her mother’s presence.

And now, because I know the story, the plant has greater presence for me, too, each day of flowering another bid for life. I’m pulling for the plant to live forever.

Blue Sky Day

Blue Sky Day

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It was a blue sky day at the bay, a day spent with my brother and sister. This meant we could talk about Dad, and his habit of standing at the threshold of a doorway, stretching out his arms and saying, “Look at that, not a cloud in the sky.”

We joked that had Dad turned around, he might have noticed looming thunderheads. But he didn’t turn around; he ignored the clouds. He kept his gaze resolutely blue-skyward. An excellent trait — until you’re caught unprepared in a sudden downpour.

No matter, we loved him — and we carried umbrellas, learned to look for and deal with the rain and clouds and gloom.

Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a blue-sky day when one is given to us.  And one was, yesterday — a glorious day.